CD-ROM Pornographer Jacks In to the Web

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CD-ROM Pornographer Jacks In to the Web

Pixis Interactive, one of the leading adult CD-ROM developers, is gearing up to offer "adult anime sex games on the Web, via pay-per-play," says its president, Mark Media, and will most likely abandon sales of CD-ROMs in the United States. "The market has been destroyed by adult video companies who jumped into the CD-ROM business and flooded the market with inferior product," Media says.

Instead, Pixis is developing a line of "virtual girls," or idoru, as Media calls them. Idoru (the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "idol") are teenage Japanese girl singers who enjoy tremendous popularity in their native country, especially among the special-interest fanatics known as otaku. The level of interactive intimacy with Pixis' virtual girls can range from "sweet innocence to hardcore sex," says Media.

The first of virtual idoru will be UltraVixen, a "very controversial" character, Media says. "There will be lots of ultraviolence mixed with anime. It's very Japanese. She's being tortured, but she likes it. There's going to be backlash." When asked who the author of the UltraVixen game is, Media chuckled and said, "That depends on how controversial it gets. I was born in Asia and raised in the West and I know this is controversial according to Western values, but not in Japan."

Media, who co-founded Pixis in 1992, cites two reasons for the crash of the adult CD-ROM market. "One, the mainstream magazines adopted a policy of no adult ads or reviews, and two, the buyers felt burned by so-called interactivity and stopped buying [adult CD-ROMs] after a while.

"In the past, our titles sold between 50,000 and 100,000 [units]," says Media. "Now, sales across the industry are ghastly. We consider a title a hit at 25,000. Our main competitor, New Machine, went bankrupt."

John Bates, former director of online services for Virtual Vegas, which was owned by New Machine, says, "I knew the Web would impact CD-ROMs, but I didn't think it would happen this quick." Given the choice between upgrading to a faster CD-ROM drive or faster modem, Bates says most people are going to select "contact with other people as well as access to a broad range of material. And you can't get that on CD-ROM."

Media estimates that he will charge users $6 to play an installment of a Pixis idoru game on the Net. Payments will be made using credit card transactions through secure-socket layers, a system that Pixis has been using for six months, Media says. Describing himself as a "3-D girl otaku," Media plans on creating a virtual girl band, with downloadable videos and songs. "They'll be more human than human," he says.

But crotch-potatoes who've just spent their last dollar on a new 8X CD-ROM drive need not despair, as at least two major adult CD-ROM developers intend to continue putting pornographic pixels onto plastic. "We don't plan on getting out of the CD-ROM business," says Bob Hagar, vice president and sales and marketing for VCA, one of the largest adult video companies. "We'll keep spending good money on good product. People got tired of seeing the same thing over and over again, but we're focusing on quality, and people recognize that." In addition, VCA is developing Web games based on two of its most popular videos, Latex and Shock. "We plan to keep plugging along with whatever new format comes along," Hagar says.

Reactor president Mike Saenz, creator of the all-time best-selling adult CD-ROM, Virtual Valerie 2, says that while he "does have a Web agenda, I tend to think of it as a modest exploration." Saenz says he has two CD-ROM projects in the works, including Virtual Valerie 3. "I don't think we've been caught up in the Web fever. We have fun doing what we do."